


Deck the halls

by FallenFurther



Series: TAG Secret Santa [2]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Avalanches, Christmas Decorations, Gen, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22391182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallenFurther/pseuds/FallenFurther
Summary: Written for the TAG Secret Santa 2019. Prompt was: Anything related to John, preferably with some hurt/comfort.John comes down to decorate the villa for Christmas, only for International Rescue to be called out.
Series: TAG Secret Santa [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1611652
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Deck the halls

The year Gordon decided everyone had to wear Christmas jumpers to decorate the tree, John had headed straight back up to Thunderbird 5 and refused to come down. Gordon threatened to come up and decorate Thunderbird 5 for him, which John promptly pointed out was a health hazard. The last thing John had expected to see when he woken the next day was the metres of tinsel taped all over his sleeping quarters. Walking through the gravity ring was like strolling into Santa's grotto. Tinsel, snowflakes and baubles had been hung and placed everywhere. He had to empty a pile of tiny red baubles from his mug to have coffee and pull tinsel out of every limb on his clean spacesuit before putting it on. It turned out Gordon and Alan had launched Thunderbird 3 the moment his head hit the pillow and had worked non-stop to make sure he felt festive. Scott had just laughed at first, until John discover the fake snow that had been left in the observation room. The floating mess interfered with the projections making it impossible to monitor anything. Gordon and Alan were promptly sent back up to clear the worst of the mess, though they were allowed to leave some tinsel and snowflakes attached to the walls. They had also been instructed to bring him back, which they did, despite his complaints. Once out of his uniform, he was caught be Scott and Virgil, both in their own awful Christmas jumpers, as he stepped out of his room. Using the element of surprise to full advantage, they pulled his jumper over his head before welcoming him home. Ever since he'd come down when asked and donned the scratchy wool jumper begrudgingly. 

This year was no different. After telling EOS that he couldn't get out of it, despite her instance that she would stop his brothers from redecorating, John sent the space elevator down on Tracy Island. As always, gravity made him a little unstable and he wobbled to his room. John stood in the shower letting the water wash everything properly. The shower on Thunderbird 5 was great, but there was a certain comfort to the one in his bathroom that couldn't be replicated. Drying off and donning his civilian clothes, John sighed. He walked over to the drawer where the jumper was kept. The wool wouldn't soften no matter how many times he'd washed it and no matter what detergent he used. John cringed when it scratched his face as he pulled it over his head. A glance in the mirror confirmed that Santa was still flying his reindeer drawn sleigh across his chest and the little metal bells attached along the reigns still jingled with his every move. Shaking his head, he headed down to the lounge to get this over and done with. 

Alan and Gordon were already in the living room, opening the boxes of decorations, fighting over what was to be hung where. John headed over to the one labelled ‘lights’, knowing that they would have been dumped back in the box last year by Gordon, so would need detangling. 

"Welcome back to Earth!"

"Glad you decided to join us, John."

John looked over his shoulder at his older brothers. Scott and Virgil were smiling at him as they carried the massive tree into the room. 

"Like I had a choice in this, though I'm glad to see you two are handling the tree this year, after last year's disaster!"

John looked over at Gordon and Alan as his elder brothers chuckled. Last year Alan and Gordon had gotten the tree and having decided it was too much effort to take it up in the lift, had tried to use the clamp on Thunderbird 2 to lower the tree to the balcony. The tree ended up battered, with branches broken and a fair portion of the needles floating in the pool. The sorry looking tree was stood in the kitchen while a new one was obtained. Thankfully they had enough baubles and tinsel to decorate the island twice over, so the tree still looked festive, even with a few branches missing. 

John watched as the tree was stood up to the side of the lounge. Pulling more lights from the box, John turned back to untangling before Gordon decided to decorate the tree without them. Once he'd freed a long chain of lights, John walked up to the tree where Virgil was standing ready. Virgil bent down allowing John to sit on his shoulders. John steadied himself as his brother stood. Leaning carefully forward, John reached out and started slipping the lights between the top branches of the tree. The needles were thankfully soft as they brushed against his skin. Virgil watched and slowly moved round the tree, though John swayed slightly, a little dizzy as his body was still getting accustomed to gravity. When they got halfway down, Virgil allowed John to get off, though stayed down to let Gordon, who had tinsel slung over both shoulders, clamber up and take John’s place. 

John continued around the tree, the lights slowly slipping through his fingers as he placed them. Gordon was soon following close behind with the tinsel just as John got to the last layer of branches. Gordon pushed under him, the trailing tinsel caused John to stubble back, arms pinwheeling. John managed to stay on his feet and stepped forward to avoid Scott, who was passing baubles up to Alan, who was on his shoulders. John went over to the large box labelled baubles and took out a smaller box of golden ones. He swapped it for the empty box that Scott was now holding. 

Gordon was grinning ear to ear, still decorated with tinsel, as he grabbed a box of shiny green baubles, before heading back to Virgil for another lift. John picked up frosty blue ones and started to put them on the lower branches, carefully keeping out the way of the others. Stepping back again to let Scott and Alan past, John stepped on a length of tinsel that Gordon had dropped. The bundle of shiny red decoration slipped against the polished floorboards sending John flying backwards. Instinct made him drop the box, which fell against his stomach as he landed on his bottom. The blue baubles bounced out the box and rolled around him. Every eye turned to John and laugher sounded out. John could feel the heat spread over his cheeks but couldn't stop himself as he joined in with the infectious laugher. Gordon was chortling so hard he was struggling to stay atop Virgil.

"You meant to hang the baubles on the tree, John, not yourself!"

His brother has fought to get the words out and Alan was sent into another sniggering fit. John looked down to see one of the shiny blue baubles had caught on one of the bells on his jumper. He shook his head, glad that the bauble had stopped the joke from being about gravity. He carefully picked the bauble off and placed it in the box, before he collected the others that were still within his reach. John headed back to the tree to hung up the offending baubles, before they could cause any more trouble. 

"Be careful John. Don't go too near the tinsel or it might conspire with gravity and trip you up again!"

John rolled his eyes. He just couldn't escape his brother's bad jokes. John stepped away from the tree and towards the boxes as the alarm sounded. Instinct took over, and he ran to his father's desk. His body was not quite ready for the sudden movement and he skidded into the side of it. John ignored the dull pain in his leg as he sat down and answered the call. 

"International Rescue, what's the situation?"

"Avalanche, French Alps, unknown number of trapped people."

"Stay calm. Get everyone you can to a safe location. Try and ascertain how many people are missing and if any of them had emergency avalanche equipment on them. Keep this line clear so I can keep in contact with you. Help is on the way."

John looked at his brothers, four solemn faces returned his gaze. The eldest was the first to speak.

"Unknown number of casualties. The more of us the better. I'll take 1, you four go in 2. John, get EOS to scan the area. We need deep thermal scans and look for any signals from any emergency equipment or beacons. The more information we can get the better. You'll monitor the situation from 2. Be prepared as time is of the essence in this situation."

John nodded before he turned to EOS whose hologram was now projecting into the room.

"Scans underway John. I'll send the data to Thunderbird 2's computer."

"Thanks EOS."

With that John stood, pulled the awful jumper over his head and threw it on the pile his brothers had made on the sofa. He fell into the bucket chair beside Alan. The tension in the room was palatable. Avalanches were personal and they never underestimated them. John took a deep breath as the chair lowered. He was known as the calm one, but it didn't mean he always felt it. Not being on Thunderbird 5 during a rescue threw him and he took another deep breath to bring his mind back into focus. Alan didn't mention anything, though when John looked at his brother, he recognised the tension that gripped the young man. John knew Alan had few memories of Mum, but it didn't stop the atmosphere from affecting him. The chairs separated and John hopped off when it paused and ran to the lockers. With practiced skill, he removed his clothes, squeezed into his spare suit and grabbed his helmet. He was back in the seat within minutes and it took him down, past the rail that led towards Thunderbird 3, and along towards Thunderbird 2's hanger. Alan's seat was slightly ahead, and John had to run to catch up with the other astronaut. They ran towards the waiting platform below Thunderbird 2. Gordon sprinted up just behind them and the three brothers were lifted into the green behemoth. John did a double take at the sight of the cockpit. There was tinsel everywhere. Well, it was everywhere where it wouldn’t be a hazard. Why Virgil had let Gordon do so this was beyond John's comprehension. 

"You like it?"

Gordon grinned straight at John. John took the co-pilot's chair, which was wrapped in golden tinsel. Virgil had green tinsel around his seat, which explained why it might be being tolerated. 

"It's festive."

John’s face displayed his displeasure and Gordon just chortled behind him. John reached up with one hand and scratched his neck where the shiny decorations were irritating his skin, while he brought up EOS's preliminary scans of the avalanche with the other. She has managed to find three emergency signals and two faint heat signatures. The priority was going to be on the people who didn't activate any emergency avalanche equipment as they were likely to have the shortest time to hypothermia. John contacted the original caller and got an update on possible numbers of trapped people and the current safe point where casualties and survivors were being rounded up at. John checked Scott's location then marked the roundup point on the map, along with a suggested place to land. He didn't need to tell Scott any more than that; his brother knew what needed to be done. A quick call to the local emergency call centre confirmed that local support was on its way. 

John kept his eyes on the data but let his hearing drift to the conversation his youngest brothers were having. They were debating how bad Christmas dinner was going to be this year. A shiver went down his spine at the memory of last year's dinner. A rescue had called them away, leaving Grandma to cook. Thankfully Brains had relinquished MAX so at least the half the food was edible, even if the vegetables had been a little overcooked. The turkey was still dry but at least it wasn’t frozen in the middle, and the gravy was tasty and abundant enough to make up for it. John was brought out of his musings by more dots popping up on the display. Scott had sent out the drones and their scans were detecting more faint heat signatures. A quick check of the inventory confirmed the spare heat cone had been brought and John quickly marked out which people needed the most urgent attention. Scott's hologram appeared between John and Virgil and silence fell over the brothers. 

"There are 13 people definitely unaccounted for. One group is using an older GPS application for locating each other. One of them is logging in now. I'm going to ping Thunderbird 5 from their phone, so John, have EOS hack it and superimpose the GPS data on what we already have."

"I’m on it, Scott."

"Alan and Gordon, you'll be in the pods. Follow John's instructions on who to rescue first. Virgil, grab the shovels and other equipment we'll need to start digging people out. I have a mountain rescue team here eager to help. You and I will work with them to get those closest to the surface out. Also bring five of the avalanche survival kits that Brains packed."

"Copy that, Scott" 

"John, head down to Thunderbird 1 and coordinate from there. There is a dog team on the way. I want you to collect as much data as you can, then help them scout the area for anyone we haven't been able to locate. The mountain is still considered unstable so everyone must have a survival pack on them at all time. John, there are spares in 1 if the dog team need it, but they should bring their own. I'll meet you on the ground."

“FAB”

Scott disappeared. They were coming up to the mountain now and the location Scott had chosen for Virgil to land popped on the screen in front of his older brother. John watched as Virgil surveyed the land before starting landing procedures. John flipped back to his screen. EOS had gotten the extra information from the app and three more locations popped up on the map bring the total to eleven. With two still missing the dog team was going to be essential for finding them. The moment Thunderbird 2's engines shut off Alan and Gordon were out of their seats and heading towards the module. John and Virgil waited for Thunderbird 2 to rise before standing on the platform which lowered them to the snow below. Scott stood below with five others who were wrapped up in professional snow gear. Virgil headed into the module, feet stepping onto the door seconds after it hit the snow. John left his brothers to their tasks and hurried down the hill towards Thunderbird 1. He ran carefully as his feet sank into the snow with each step. 

As John approach Thunderbird 1 the stairwell descended, and John smiled. He took the steps two at a time and grabbed a case from one of the craft's storage holds. He looked towards the pilot's seat where a hologram of EOS was hovering. 

"Thanks for the help, EOS. I'm going to set up base in the evacuation point so I can be there to meet the dog team. You'll only be able to communicate with written words. You'll download what I need to the computer when I turn it on, right?"

"Of course I will John! What kind of AI do you take me for?"

"The mischievous kind."

John left Thunderbird 1 and EOS secured her up behind him. He followed the footprints Scott had made to the safe point. A quick conversation with the woman in charge and John had a table set up. The 3D holographic map now displayed his brother's icons and the heat signatures of the other rescue crew, which EOS was now tracking. John smiled as the pods reached their respective heat signatures and started the rescue. John watched over the rescue like this for thirty-five minutes and got to see the first few rescuees as they were carried to the safe area where paramedics were ready to treat them. When the dog team arrived, John introduced himself. He handed them each a pad and headset so he could communicate with them and showed them how to view the grid he'd made of the area. With the team split in two and with the shovels on their backs, John watched the dog teams leave to scout their respective grids. 

John sat back down and gazed at the map again. A quick communication with Scott confirmed that another two people had been rescued by them and they were heading to the next. John could see that one of the mountain team was bringing the next few rescuees down. John noted the deep breaths Scott tried to hide, so pulled up his and Virgil's suit stats. Both were a little warm, with increased respiration rates but all was with expected parameters. They would be tired later but were still fine to continue. Next on John's list was Gordon, who he knew kept an open line with Alan. A quick listen in on their communications showed that they were both focused on the rescue, relaying encouragement to each other. Speaking to them both, they each gave their progress updates, though Alan had to pause partway through as he had reached an avalanche capsule and had to jump out to retrieve it. Satisfied that International Rescue was performing as expected, John turned his attention back to the dog rescue teams. They had already cleared the lower quadrants which were less likely to have contained the missing people. The dogs were making great progress and five minutes later they had located one of the missing people. John sent Scott the coordinates, and he headed to them with two helpers, and allowed the dog and handler to continue searching. 

An hour and a half later the dog team had finished covering the avalanche area and fifteen people had been rescued. The pods were back in the module, all equipment had been returned and they were all debriefing at the safe point. All the survivors had been carted off to hospital, and the mountain rescue team was preparing to take down the marquee that had been erected. John was glad to shake hands with and thank the people who had helped them and smiled as Alan was allowed to play with the dogs. They were pets during the summer and the play they received was part of the reward they got for doing a fantastic job. After being dismissed, John trudged up the hill towards Thunderbird 2. A snowball hit his shoulder and he turned to glare at Gordon, whose proud grin almost stretched up to his ears.

“Don’t even think about throwing another one.”

John watched as the snowball in Gordon’s hand flew at Virgil. John rolled his eyes and shook his head. It was a successful rescue. Part of him knew there could still be people unaccounted for, but the probability was slim. Virgil took the snowball to the back without complaint and just continued to head up the mountain. John knew he was exhausted. Alan and Gordon continued the snowball fight all the way to Thunderbird 2, still full of energy from being in the pods for most the mission. John kept an eye on them and ducked his head a few times to avoid being caught in the crossfire. Virgil reached the base of Thunderbird 2 first and summoned the platform down. John saw Virgil reach down, before he turned to face him. John could see the weariness in his older brother’s face, but there was mischief in his smile. Virgil threw the snowball and John watched as it hit the back of Gordon’s head.

“Hey!”

Gordon beamed at Virgil and John smiled too. Sometimes you needed a little brother to remind you to relax and have fun. John reached Virgil’s side and helped him pelt the younger two with snow. They were all laughing when the entered the warm interior of the craft. They all sat down in their respective seats, the tinsel already tickling John’s neck again. 

“What’s with all the laughter? What have I missed?”

Scott’s hologram floated in front of them all, a knowing smile on his face. 

“We just took our time getting to the two, Scott!” Alan’s cheerful voice answered, the snowball in his hands dripped on the floor. Virgil gave the small puddle a dirty look, and Alan looked a little sheepish. 

“Okay. Okay.” Scott laughed, “I’ll see you back at base.”

The flight back was uneventful, and John was glad to have a shower and be back in the warmth of the villa. Their suits may be able to keep them at a comfortable temperature, but there was still something about snow that chilled John to the bone. He walked into the living room and took a hot chocolate from the tray Scott was holding. John started to head to the stairs so he could sit on reading gallery, when Gordon stood in his way, the jumper in one hand and the other held out for his mug.

“We haven’t finished decorating yet and don’t think you can get out of wearing your Christmas jumper.”

John looked around the room at his family, all back in their own tacky Christmas jumpers, and sighed. He gave Gordon his mug and pulled the jumper over his head, before taking the drink back. John wondered how long he’d have to wait until they’d let him go back up to Thunderbird 5, knowing Gordon and Alan were about to go into full annoying younger brother mode as they finished putting up the Christmas decorations.


End file.
